


you’re in my sky

by ninemoons42



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Children, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Clouds, First Kiss, First Love, Fluff, Food, Holding Hands, Kid Fic, M/M, Puppy Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-28
Updated: 2012-10-28
Packaged: 2017-11-17 06:17:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/548507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for <a href="http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/"><b>cottoncandy_bingo</b></a>. Prompt: clouds. My card is <a href="http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/208216.html">here</a>.<br/>Marked as "underage" on a technicality: both Charles and Erik are in their early teens.</p>
    </blockquote>





	you’re in my sky

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**cottoncandy_bingo**](http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/). Prompt: clouds. My card is [here](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/208216.html).  
>  Marked as "underage" on a technicality: both Charles and Erik are in their early teens.

title: you’re in my sky  
author: [](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/)**ninemoons42**  
word count: approx. 1880  
fandom: X-Men: First Class [movieverse]  
characters: Erik Lehnsherr, Charles Xavier. Mention of Sharon Xavier, Kurt Marko, Cain Marko  
rating: PG  
warnings: discussion of Charles Xavier's comics background.  
notes: Written for [](http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**cottoncandy_bingo**](http://cottoncandy-bingo.dreamwidth.org/). Prompt: clouds. My card is [here](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/208216.html).

  
Charles wakes up with a low insistent ringing in his ears, with voices in his head, and the first thing he does is gasp and attempt to burrow into his pillows. It’s all he can do to try and shut all of the noises out – shut the whole world out.

There’s happiness like the smell of a new book and the heft of a battered but still working fountain pen; there’s happiness like vanilla custard churned into ice cream and studded with toffee bits.

And then there’s this: a shadow or a copy of happiness, nothing real or lasting about it. It’s cold and it feels thick and clammy and _wrong_ , and in Charles’s mind it’s a cloudy miasma that creeps into every corner and every inch of every corridor in this house. It crawls under the blankets with him, squirms beneath his skin, enough to make him clap his hands over his mouth to stifle the whine rising at the back of his throat.

 _Away,_ he thinks, and carefully doesn’t broadcast. He can do that now. _Out of here._

_Anywhere but here._

He carefully lifts a corner of the sheet and peers in the direction of the windows. What little light comes in through the curtains is thin and pale and distant. The clock on the table next to the bed tells him that there’s still at least an hour to go before full daylight. It’s not much, but it’s enough – he slides out of bed, silently, and gets dressed. A fresh shirt, heavy denim trousers, jumper and scarf and fingerless gloves. The weather has been nippy in the past few days, and Charles hates being cold almost as much as he hates the willful, obstinate kind of ignorance.

Almost as much as he hates being in this house.

He reaches for the satchel he keeps hidden behind one of the bookshelves, and assesses his supplies: a battered blue thermos, clean and empty; a heavy flashlight, a fraying picnic blanket.

Crossing back to the bed, he looks over the stack of books on the nightstand; two go into the bag, along with the notebook he carries everywhere with him. The leather binding is embossed in what’s supposed to be a pattern of puffy cartoonish clouds.

Pens and a handkerchief go into his pockets along with a small penknife engraved with the letter _B_.

There are books and other things scattered on the floor and around the unmade bed, and he thinks about shifting things around into neater-looking piles – but there’s a flash of pain and ugliness in his head, something that isn’t his, something that implies _someone_ – and he abandons his plans and hurries out into the empty corridor. His heartbeat hammers in his ears as he pulls at the chain he wears around his neck, at the heavy key that he wears on it, and locks the door securely, hoping the tumblers will hold for another day.

Charles takes the long way downstairs: he has to dodge around the maids and the other servants, the other people in the house. He passes each with bated breath and the words that loop in his head, frantic but steady: _You don’t see me; I’m not here._

He keeps that thought going just until he’s in the kitchen; at the table, Mrs Williams blinks, looks up from the dough she’s kneading, and then beckons him over. “Are you all right, then?” she asks.

“As all right as I can be,” Charles says, and offers her a tentative smile. He slides his hand briefly into her flour-dusted one.

“I know you’re going to want to be gone,” she says. “I’ve put together something for you. But first sit down and eat.”

Charles wants to linger over his milky tea, over the generous slice of spicy cake topped off with apple chunks and cinnamon sugar, but the pressure in the back of his head continues: he can hear the voices of Sharon and of Kurt and of Cain talking about tonight’s party, the guests they’ve invited, the food and the wine.

Too close, too close, and he jumps down from his chair as soon as he swallows the last bite, and there is only enough time for Mrs Williams to hand him his filled thermos, already sweating from whatever she’s put in it, and a large package wrapped in several thicknesses of brown paper. Then he runs for it, out the door and through the gardens until the voices in his head fall away into indistinct whispers.

There isn’t even enough sunlight yet to burn off the soft fog, and for that, Charles is grateful – it hides his passage through the grounds, skirting past flower bed and copse of trees, past the elaborate fountain, past the groundskeeper’s small cottage. He slithers through a gap in the fence surrounding the property, careful not to get his jumper or scarf caught in the splintering wood.

Free at last, after he crosses the creek. Rolling hills and slopes full of wildflowers and clover and graceful swaying grasses, and overhead the sky turns pale blue at last, soft patches of cloud already casting faint shadows over the landscape, and over the stand of willows near the crest of the nearest hill.

Charles lets himself smile, at last, as he makes his way to those trees – as he throws himself into the grass, still green in patches. There’s no one else here, and it’s quiet inside his mind, quiet enough that he can almost hear the thoughts of the birds flitting through the branches overhead, even when he curls up on his side and the grass and the fallen leaves crunch beneath him.

With the birds singing encouragement he opens his mind completely, this being one of the very few places where he allows himself such freedom, and he nearly immediately brushes up against a mind thinking warm thoughts: _blue sky, not so cool, he’s up here early, I hope things are okay, do I have enough sandwiches to share? Oh, that’s a pretty cloud, I have to remember it for him._

 _Hello, Erik,_ Charles thinks, smiling even as he rolls over again onto his back, as he props himself up on one elbow so he can watch the other boy climb up the hill. _You’re early, too._

Erik’s smile, when he drops into the grass right next to Charles’s hip, is small and genuine and sweet – and also worried. “I’m guessing you’re already out here for a reason.”

Charles winces a little, and lies back down. “I left a madhouse. They’re preparing for an anniversary party down there – at least, that’s what they’re calling it. I’d just as soon not be there. I won’t be missed, and they won’t want me there.”

Erik makes a small noise – _derision, contempt_.

Charles grips back when Erik’s hand catches his.

“Tell me things,” he murmurs, eventually, watching a hawk work its long, looping way across the clouds and the blue above.

“Dad is making pot roast tonight,” Erik offers after a moment. “I heard him and Mom talking about it. He’s probably heading into town right now as we speak.”

“I like pot roast,” Charles says, smiling and inching closer.

Erik lets him: “Come here,” he says, and they shuffle around a little, ending up side by side, touching from shoulders to ankles. “You’re warm.”

“I hate being cold,” Charles says, looking up as a wisp of cloud passes briefly over the sun, throwing them briefly into shadow.

“But you start all the snowball fights.”

Charles laughs quietly. “Running keeps me warm.”

“You can run, Charles, but you can’t run forever,” Erik says, teasing.

“Apparently not, because I always end up with snow stuffed down the back of my shirt.”

“All the better to take you home and drop you in front of a fire with a mug of Mom’s hot cocoa,” Erik says.

“In that case, I wouldn’t mind losing,” Charles says – and then someone’s stomach rumbles, and he has to laugh. “I’m not going to ask. Come on, I want to know what I left with.”

“You mean you didn’t look?” Erik asks – but he goes and gets the picnic blanket from Charles’s bag, spreading it out in a clear area free of rocks and roots.

Charles lays out the contents of Mrs Williams’s package: sandwiches wrapped in foil – “Oh, peanut butter and blueberry, I like those,” Erik says; a small bunch of bananas, some crackers and a fist-sized knob of hard cheese. There are spoons in the package, and when he opens the last item in the package he understands why: it’s a sturdy pottery bowl filled to the brim with rice pudding.

 _Rice pudding,_ Erik thinks, longingly.

Charles laughs and passes it to him. “Go on. I’ll tell Mrs Williams what you think.”

“Thanks, Charles,” Erik says, and he calls the spoon into his hand so he can start eating.

“Anytime.” Charles takes a banana and a sandwich for himself, and settles so he’s within touching distance of Erik.

 _Lovely day,_ Charles thinks, and doesn’t care who hears. _Far better than what I started with. Thank you._

“You’re welcome,” Erik says out loud. He rebalances the pudding in his lap so he has a free hand to loop around Charles’s waist, and so he can plant his chin on Charles’s shoulder. He adds: “Forget them, Charles. Forget the people who make you feel bad. We’re here.” _I’m here._

 _I know you’re here, Erik,_ Charles thinks. _Thank you. You make me happy. Happy like smiling all the time._

“I try.”

It seems entirely natural for Charles to turn his head a little, then, and to brush a kiss against Erik’s cheek.

What he’s not expecting is Erik returning the gesture, warm press to the corner of his mouth, and he sends Erik a wordless inquiry: _?_

He gets a mental shrug in return. _What? I’m sorry, if you didn’t want me to._

“No, I – it was good, I liked it, but – you never said or _thought_ – ”

Erik stares, and puts his food down, and takes both of Charles’s hands, just as another cloud moves to block out the bright sunlight. “I hid it, because I didn’t know if you were thinking about it. You’re the telepath, not me. We can talk now, though.”

 _I’ve been thinking about it, but – I don’t want to talk. Not yet._ Charles takes a deep breath and looks Erik in the eyes. “Right now I just want to be with you.”

Erik looks back steadily, and he must see something because he smiles and nods and presses his forehead against Charles’s. “Yes. Okay. That sounds good.”

“Okay,” Charles echoes, as the cloud shifts and sunlight falls on them once again. “I’m here,” he says, out loud. “I’m here and you’re here and I’m happy.” Pause. “You?”

Erik says in a near-whisper, “You’re one of the things that make me happy. The one I like best.”

Charles smiles and moves forward and puts his arms around Erik – and he waits with bated breath until Erik does the same.

“Still not talking?” Erik says, but he sounds like he’s laughing, so Charles lets that slide.

“Still not talking,” he says, and holds on with his heart in his throat, and feels Erik hold on.  



End file.
